


mirroring - a study of dreams

by frecklesmelody



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Oh god, bucky barnes/the winter soldier BUT NOT REALLY DONT WORRY, i am so stressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2845259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklesmelody/pseuds/frecklesmelody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ Mirroring is the behaviour in which one person subconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. ]<br/>After HYDRA's fall, a forgotten, damaged weapon wanders the streets of Washington. No matter how fast he goes, there's no running away from himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mirroring - a study of dreams

The first time was bright and blinding.

The Soldier wasn’t used to human sleep. His entire life consisted of on/off cycles, his rest depending on a flick of the switch. He spent most of his time sleeping, yet never had to fall asleep. And those were two completely separate things.

Cryo sleep was cold numbness and forgetting. Human sleep was confusion and it left him vulnerable. To other people but most importantly – to visions.

He took small naps when his energy was down, worrying not to let himself drift off for too long. He was alone in a crowded city. Running, stealing food and mostly hiding; his existence became one of a wild animal’s. When he finally found a safe spot to sleep in, on a roof near his Target apartment, he was so exhausted that the world was spinning before his eyes. He closed them for just a second.

The next thing he saw was the Operating Room. Shelves filled with various electronic devices, so high up that the walls were barely visible despite the sharp, fluorescent light. Quiet buzzing. Cold touch of a metal chair under him. ECT machine. Steel bars.

He was at the HYDRA facility, the very last one he visited. But he was alone. No shackles on his wrists and ankles, no agents or doctors. The Soldier straightened up and hesitantly started to look around when the door on the other side of the room sprang open.

The person in front of him wasn’t an agent. The Soldier felt his whole body tensing up.

It was Bucky Barnes.

He didn’t notice his mouth had uttered the name on its own. Wearing the exact same clothes he had on in the Smithsonian’s photos – which naturally were black and white but the Soldier knew just the right colours – Bucky looked as if he walked straight out of the exposition. The only thing different was his face.

The angry, enraged expression reminded him of HYDRA superiors’ when he hadn’t completed a mission exactly right.

‘Bucky Barnes.’, the Soldier repeated, this time consciously. Bucky snorted quietly.

‘Would you look at that,’ he said. ‘ _now_ you remember me.’

‘Yes. I saw you at the museum.’

‘Oh, really. You did.’

The Soldier nodded. He wasn’t sure it was a question but he should always give a reply.

‘And just then have you remembered me?’, Bucky’s voice was quiet and sounded like he kept it down on purpose, ‘Just then? After seeing the pictures?’

‘No.’ The Soldier felt a bit more confident. He could answer that, he knew. The photos were the very end of his discovery of Bucky Barnes. It had all started with the whole world breaking down before his very eyes. It’d all started with his last mission. ‘I’ve first remembered you that time on the bridge. That man, my Target—‘

‘Don’t you call him that!’

The Soldier shuddered and tried to hide his head in shoulders, pushing his body against the chair. Bucky’s voice became hoarse as he got closer. ‘Don’t you ever call him that, do you understand?’

Shivers went up the Soldier’s spine. He wasn’t a lethal weapon anymore, he was broken and defenseless. And deeply afraid of the man in front of him. Breathe, focus. ‘He was my Target.’, he whispered, trying to justify the actions he really didn’t want to take. For the first time in his life, on the Helicarrier, the Soldier had felt he shouldn’t follow orders despite the deadly consequences. But HYDRA collapsed before it could punish him, leaving him hanging.  

‘No, he was your _FRIEND._ And you almost killed him. Just like you killed me.’

No. He took a deep breath. Focus. ‘No’, answered he, forcing himself to look at Bucky’s face, at his nose, brows, but never in the eye, that was forbidden, ‘No, I didn’t kill you. That’s impossible. You… You fell off of the train in 1944, I’ve read about it. Seen it at the museum. I wasn’t… created then. It was too early…’

Suddenly, Bucky took a step back and looked at him with disgust that lasted only a moment.

‘You really don’t remember.’, he said in surprisingly sad voice. ‘You killed me. In _you_. This is all that’s left.’

He gestured to the devices surrounding them. ‘If it wasn’t for Steve, I would never talk to you. And I never will, don’t worry.’

Bucky moved briefly as if he wanted to leave the room but instead, he leaned over and grabbed his shirt. ‘Do not get near him again.’, he said, looking straight into his eye.

‘Leave. Die, I don’t care. But leave him alone.’

The Soldier woke up panting.

It was still dark and the neighbourhood seemed deeply asleep, yet he felt watched. His whole body was covered in cold sweat; he picked up his things as quickly as he could and climbed down the building. He sprinted mindlessly forward to get away, just to get away from the man Bucky Barnes cared about the most.

 

The second time was chaotic and painful.

The Soldier got scared of human sleep. He kept his distance from the Target. Wandering the streets of Washington uncaught and invisible, he tried to find the remaining HYDRA agents and once and for all give up on the nonsense called his past.

It was all in vain. No one was looking for him. He was a thrown away, broken toy that for some reason hadn’t stopped functioning.

Then again, the Soldier wasn’t functioning _properly._ He couldn’t help thinking about Bucky Barnes, what his Target had told him on the Helicarrier and what he had heard from Barnes himself. Every time the Soldier woke up from a dreamless sleep, he felt a weird mixture of relief and disappointment.

He wanted to find out if there'd been a life before HYDRA but at the same time, was frightened of what he could learn. What if he had been Bucky Barnes once? What if he hadn’t? At this point the outcome, whatever it could be, started to seem like a solace.

During another fruitless night, something had cracked. The Soldier stopped recognizing good from bad a long time ago, it wasn’t a part of his job. Right now, no matter what he did, the fact that he hadn’t gone down with HYDRA and remained alive was a feeling of guilt burning in his chest.

He could never become a human and live like one.

He could never come back to his dead superiors.

He would never find his past, not without his Target.

Was he even alive? The Soldier didn’t know that for sure, no, he didn’t have any past for sure. There was no past. That was just a trick. A trick to make him confused and not finish the mission.

At least he could get rid of the only person still standing in his way.

He went up to the edge of the roof he was staying on that night. He had chosen a higher building for no reason, but now he was going to find a reason. He stood still, staring quietly at the street 15 floors beneath him. Would it be enough? He lost all of HYDRA weapons; the last one, his metal arm was of no use. Would it be enough if he just closed his eyes and took one step forward? Eliminating Targets with his bare hands was easy, eliminating himself – that wasn’t within his competence.

The Soldier took a step up a concrete barrier that parted the roof from the open space.

 _You have survived worse._ The voice inside his head was low and so different from his superiors’, from Dr. Zola’s. _They will find you. They will lock you up. Not HYDRA, worse._ Stop, stop, shut up. Cold air in his hair, one step and it’ll all be over.  _You will survive. You can’t even do this right._

He held his breath and started to move, but saw someone stopping in the street, looking up and pointing to him. The woman opened her mouth and must have shouted something, but the words didn't matter. He’s been spotted.

His whole body jerked on instinct and pulled away from the edge. The Soldier fell flat on his legs and curled up. Just now he realized he was shaking. Cold concrete behind him could have been the last thing he’d touch before hitting the ground. He couldn’t. He wasn’t supposed to think. He couldn’t even finish this.

With his face pressed against his knees, he tried to slow his heart rate down.

‘What the _fuck_ was that.’

The Soldier lifted his head in panic, ready to run away from someone who’d found him on the roof, but he wasn’t there anymore.

Bucky Barnes was sitting on the floor at his feet in the Operating Room. The Soldier instantly felt small and pathetic under his gaze.

‘You’re… here.’

‘Of course I’m fucking here, where else could I be?’, apart from his words, Bucky didn’t seem as angry as last time. ‘I’ll ask again. What the fuck was that?’

‘I…’, the Soldier gulped. Even now he felt so worn out he couldn’t bring himself to answer properly. That was the price he was paying now, he should have jumped. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You tried to kill yourself.’

‘Yes.’

‘You have already killed me, wasn’t it enough?’

The Soldier stayed silent, staring at the tiles on the floor. There was no point in arguing, he understood that.

‘You were weak and killed me, now you’re weak and want to kill yourself.’, Bucky said, standing up. ‘I stopped you. Again.’

Of course. That voice was his. ‘You… said it. You said I could die.’, The Soldier furrowed his brows.

‘Not yet. Though I see why you’d want it.’, Bucky stack his thumbs into the pockets of his army jacket. ‘I had some time to think but so did you, right? Now, tell me…’

For a second he looked like he was wondering what to call him.

‘Look… The thing I don’t get is why such a piece of garbage decided to kill the only part of himself that had some worth?’

The Soldier gulped. He was just so tired. According to Zola, he was created by HYDRA, had no life before or after HYDRA and was solely and most of all, an asset.

But was anything he believed in true? His Target was so sure and all the disjointed shreds of memories he recovered from time to time seemed more real than anything he knew.

‘It wasn’t my decision’, the Soldier chose his words carefully. ‘I had no choice. HYDRA—‘

‘Yeah, sure, the Nazis did a great job but they couldn’t have achieved that without you, huh? They would give up on you eventually. You had to kill me yourself, piece by piece, to become… this.’, Bucky pointed at him, sham indifference in his gestures.

‘But… that was what my—… What Steven Rogers told me. You and him, you both… told me he was my friend. Was it true?’, The Soldier asked, automatically ignoring that questions were against the rules. Bucky looked perplexed.

‘He was _my_ friend. You’re just a pathetic murderer who was too weak to die with me when he had a chance. I hate you more than I’ve hated anyone, ever.’ There was a vague, sad smile starting in the corners of Bucky’s mouth. Suddenly, he reached to him and the Soldier couldn’t – didn’t want to – move away. ‘But even if I try…!’

Everything happened faster than he’d notice. Bucky swung his left arm in a way the Soldier’s brain recognized instantly (be told – disobey – get hit), making him push his chin forward to give the superior a better access.

But instead of a punch, he felt nothing.

‘What the…’, Bucky tried to hit him again but the hand moved as if it couldn’t reach him despite the small distance. ‘…there. There, see?’ He let out a desperate laugh. ‘I can’t even touch you. This is… This is what I get…’

The Soldier was still observing him hypnotized, when Bucky shook his head and sat down on a mechanic’s chair on his left. With his jaw clenched, he stayed silent for a long while.

‘And this is why I can’t let you die. Yet.’, he said eventually. His tone of voice was identical to the one the Soldier heard on the edge of the concrete barrier. ‘That’d be unfair. Dying is easy. You have to do something harder. Are you even listening?’, the Soldier nodded. ‘Good. So, listen up - finally make some effort and stop being useless. You have to remember.’

Having heard that, the Soldier got a sudden urge, much more intensive than before when he was about to be hit, to curl up in a defensive pose. ‘I… don’t know if I can.’, he mumbled. ‘I don’t know if--if I’m allowed to--… I shouldn’t remember you, I shouldn’t...’

‘You have to!’, Bucky once again felt too close to him, even if he hadn’t moved an inch from his chair, ‘I will never leave, do you understand? Try me, I will… find a way to kill you. And I’ll haunt you, every fucking night I will haunt you, if you think you can forget me again--’

‘But I _can’t_ remember!’, the Soldier was almost shouting now, his thoughts all over the place. ‘I went to the museum but I’ve seen you, you, only you, I have no idea who _I_ am! The only time it all made sense was when—when… when he was talking to me.’

For the first time, a shadow of fear appeared on Bucky’s face.

‘And maybe I should just... see him again...’ 

‘No,’ Bucky gasped and tried to grab onto his arm.  ‘That’s not what I—No. No! Stay away from him, don’t ever think, I won’t let you--’  

His face and the Operating Room got blurry when someone begin to shake the Soldier’s shoulder (the right one, fortunately). He blinked quickly and saw a man with the word ‘maintenance’ printed onto the shirt. He must have woken him up and looked pretty angry, shouting words in an outrage. The Soldier rushed forward and pushed him to the side without giving himself any spare time to think. He ran to the next building like a frightened stray cat, still numb and dazed from seeing Bucky.

Calling Steven Rogers his Target had an entirely new meaning now.

 

The third time was silent and dim.

It was the very first night the Soldier hadn’t spent in the streets.

It was also the first time he let himself be found.

Feeling exhausted from being torn apart between wanting to know more about his past and believing that he should never know the truth, the Soldier gave up. Meeting Steven Rogers was a better option, even if it meant being killed by him or any of his accomplices, eliminated like an error that he was. Defeated and lost, one night the Soldier sneaked up to his apartment.

And Steve Rogers had no intention of killing him. Instead, he took care of him.

Now his head was pressed against Rogers’ pillow and his eyelids felt heavy, as if someone pushed the button that froze him for decades. Overwhelmed with all the weird, unknown sensations – the ones he couldn’t name yet but there surely was no fright among them - he let his guard down and drifted off quickly.

Before any other image could appear in his mind, the Soldier found himself in the Operating Room. The machines behind him were turned off. In dimmed light, he saw a still figure across the room.

‘Bucky,' he exclaimed.

The other man was slouched against the wall, his gaze fixed on his shoes. He didn’t move or even show that he had heard the Soldier’s voice. ‘Bucky? I… found him. Steve Rogers.’

Bucky didn’t reply. It all started to seem like reporting to his superiors.

‘But he thinks he found me. I let him. I was so tired, I… wanted to remember. Like you told me.’

‘He gave me food. And washed me. And he said so many things… and wasn’t afraid of me, at all.’

Still, there was no answer. ‘I’m sleeping in his bed now.’ The impression of delivering a mission report quickly disappeared; it didn’t feel like an obligation anymore, and the Soldier really wanted to keep talking.

‘There was also that woman I shot, Romanova... And the man with mechanical wings. They didn’t seem to trust me. But he… he’s different.’ The Soldier tried very hard to find the right description in his leaky memory. Why was Rogers so different from everyone and everything he knew? Why was something constantly pushing him in his direction, as though he couldn’t find peace without him? Why did he want to stay? ‘He treats me as if I was… I am human.’

‘He’s a fool then.’

The Soldier shuddered. Bucky didn’t raise his voice nor head, but he could clearly hear his disdain in his mind.

‘Steve may trust you. He may think you’re me. I don’t.’

Bucky shot a suspicious glance at him. The Soldier heard him mumbling ‘always too gullible...’ before he closed his eyes and froze in that position, ignoring him further.

The morning came after long hours of staring at Bucky idly in desperation. There was nothing the Soldier could say or do to bring him back. Their conversations stopped altogether.

 

Two weeks later, they met again.

Even without meeting Bucky, the Soldier’s dreams became more vivid the more time he spent with Steve. Stories, photos he’d shown him, everything felt strangely familiar and new at the same time. And although he still hadn’t accepted that Bucky Barnes may really be him, that thought didn’t hurt so much to think about.

He’d still seen the Operating Room sometimes but it was always empty.

With a memory that didn’t exactly resume working, the Soldier was left hanging in between, neither taking one step forward nor two steps back. He was taught to repress every thought of the past; now they often appeared against his will, leaving him frustrated and speechless. He believed Steve wouldn’t lie to him. Still, he wasn’t sure Steve would be willing to keep him much longer if he continued to be that useless.

But Steve was patient and kind. He never demanded a reply. The Soldier wished he could meet Bucky again and beg to confirm all the stories Steve had told him.

He never told Steve about their conversations and as the time passed, he started to worry if he hadn’t made them up.

Then one night he opened his eyes to the sound of fingers tapping on the metal chair.

‘Finally,’  Bucky said, straightening his back. The Soldier opened his mouth before he could speak.

‘You’re here…?’

‘So are you.’, as if he hadn’t ignored him last time they’d seen each other, Bucky seemed almost… friendly. ‘This place’s shit. Why don’t you ever go outside?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, you see… there’s this thing called a _door_.’

‘No… No, it doesn’t work. I can’t escape.’

‘Of course you can. Why not?’

With a slightly amused expression, Bucky opened the door. The Soldier stood up, too scared to come closer, too shaken to stay in one place. ‘How…?’ He had been looking for Bucky every time he woke up in the Operating Room and found it empty. And every time he would try to break or at least open the door. ‘It was closed--’

‘Yeah, hasn’t been for some time. Nevermind that. Come.’, Bucky waved at him.

The Soldier hesitated.

What could be waiting outside? He had seen the door ajar only once, when Bucky entered the room on their first encounter. Along with his weird behaviour, it could have been a trap.

‘Come on, what are you so afraid of?’, Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s go, I’ll be with you.’

‘I don’t know if--… What is outside…?’

‘Best place on Earth. Won’t be waiting forever, you coming or not?’

Slowly, the Soldier took a step towards the door and peeked outside. The air hit his face and blood rushed into his head. He ran forward.

They were standing on a street the Soldier had seen in black and white photographs at least a dozen times before. Old brick houses on both sides of the road looked alive, as If an ordinary family day had just been coming to an end. Some shadows moved behind thick glass windows, though there was no one in sight.

Everything felt less real than the Operating Room, much more like a scenography than actual surroundings. The Soldier tried to stop blinking, too afraid of dissolving the moment.

He turned around anxiously but Bucky was already by his side, looking around with a smug expression. He sat down on the dirty curb and patted the pavement next to him.

‘Hey! Make yourself comfortable. We have some… stuff to talk over.’, the Soldier sat next to him meekly, still staring at everything with his mouth open.

‘I recognize this place.’

‘Well, it’s not like I’d spent half of my life here. Or more.’

‘Brooklyn…?’

‘You’re guessing or you’re sure?’

A black automobile drove past them but it was impossible to see the driver.

‘I’m… I remember the photographs Steve showed me.’, the Soldier said before realizing that speaking about Steve may enrage Bucky again. But instead, Bucky just nodded. ‘I’m staying with him.’

‘Yeah, I know. Should have known you wouldn’t listen to me,’ Bucky smiled briefly. ‘But that’s good… I’d probably do the same.’ He pointed a finger at him. ‘You mustn’t hurt him, that’s the deal.’

‘I won’t! I would never… not—not again. He… I knew him before but that’s not all. He’s… the best person I’ve ever met.’

Bucky’s voice sounded a lot softer when he spoke again.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been watching you. Both of you. I might still not trust you, but you don’t want to harm Steve, that’s obvious. And I’ve decided…’

He took a deep breath.

‘That hating you… won’t get us anywhere.’

‘ _What_?’, the Soldier said after a long pause. For a change, it was Bucky who now looked really uncomfortable. ‘You were avoiding me, I thought… No, no, I killed you. You shouldn’t be good to me.’

‘Okay… that may have been an overstatement. The things they were doing to you…  HYDRA, I mean… they’d have kept doing them until you forgot me completely. Or until you died. But hey, we’re still here!’, Bucky turned his face to the Soldier. ‘I was angry with you, so angry, that you’re the one who got to live instead of me. But then it hit me…’

Bucky turned away from his gaze and clenched the right hand on his own knee.

‘…You’re not the one I should be angry with.’

‘Steve told me the same thing,’ the Soldier said quietly. ‘That HYDRA has taken my life away from me. And that it… It wasn’t my fault.’

He gulped. A lump in his throat made it hard to speak.

‘Yeah, I’ve heard.’, Bucky continued, still looking at him with something resembling pity. ‘And I know what it was like. You’re not weak, Bucky.’

‘ _Bucky_?’

The Soldier glanced at him as puzzled as if he had called him a completely random name. Bucky raised one brow.

‘That’s how we’re called, right?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘What?’

‘I've thought I don't deserve this name.’

‘ _God_ , aren’t you dramatic.’

Bucky rolled his eyes again and finally let out a soft laugh. The Soldier couldn’t contain his confusion any longer; he looked straight into his eyes, counting on finding an explanation in his expression – a twitch, a quick glance, something to show him Bucky was bluffing. But he was just smiling.

‘Look, it’s our name, whether you like it or not. You still don’t remember me, okay, no big deal, but do you want to remember? Truly want?’

‘Of course I do!’, the Soldier said. ‘Sometimes I just… I feel like I should stop thinking about the past, so I... push these thoughts away. But I would really want to remember and be… be you. I’d want to be you for Steve.’

‘Oh—‘, Bucky fell silent for a moment. ‘Okay, sure. Steve’s helping. But maybe… If you also let me…’

He reached out to him, with his hand in the air, waiting. The Soldier frowned but seeing his encouraging look, he instinctively put his left hand out of the hoodie’s pocket.

‘Sorry…’, he tried to quickly swap it for his right one, but Bucky stopped him.

‘That’s alright.’

The Soldier gave him his left hand. Bucky touched the cold metal cautiously at first, then squeezed his fingers gently.

‘Can you feel that?’

‘Yes… Yes! What does it mean?’

‘Well… you let me do it.’ Bucky was practically grinning now. ‘You have to let me… let yourself remember. I’m still hidden under so many layers of wiping you and destroying what you knew but it’s not hopeless. Just… try not to fight these memories you get from time to time, okay?’

The Soldier looked down at their joined hands.

‘Because it’s me. Knocking.’, Bucky said, squeezing his hand tighter. ‘And then… I think we could stop being two people.’

‘But… What will happen to you?’, the Soldier shook his head. All of the sudden, it seemed awfully scary. ‘Will you disappear…? I don’t want you to, I don’t want to wake up here alone.’

‘No, you dummy. I won’t be knocking anymore, I’ll be opening the door!’, seeing that the Soldier only started to look more confused, Bucky sighed. ‘That was a metaphor. I mean, I will become you again. Slowly. We’ll be together.’

The Soldier still didn’t feel completely convinced but another assuring sentence was not what he needed to hear. He wanted proof.

Bucky let go of his hand and stood up. Swearing at the state of the pavement, he flicked away the dust from his clothes.

‘Wait. What if I… What if I’m not the real you?’, the Soldier asked. ‘What if this is all made up from the things I’ve learnt about you?’

Another empty car went down the street. Bucky focused for a moment.

‘Well… Let’s see… you’d have to know something no one else could be aware of.’, he shrugged. ‘You love Steve.’

‘Yes.’

The word escaped his mouth before he could think. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good, then at least that one thing hasn’t changed for sure.’

The street was still unmoved and desolate, yet everything seemed to come into focus when the Soldier stared at the building behind his back. He was sure two scruffy boys could run out of it every minute, laughing loudly and teasing each other.

When he turned around, Bucky had already left.

 

The last time was forgiveness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> based on and inspired by [ Maya's](http://thedeathsicle.tumblr.com/) dream  
> a christmas gift for her ♥♥♥ (I'M SO SORRY)
> 
> please note that English isn't my mother tongue
> 
> for my artblog, visit [ maria-tries](http://maria-tries.tumblr.com/)


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